Gomez-Bethke, Irene, 1935-

Irene Marie Gomez-Bethke was born in Minneapolis on January 22, 1935. Her parents were natives of northern Mexico, and came to Minnesota in 1923 as migrant farm workers. A few years later they settled in Minneapolis. Irene grew up in north Minneapolis, and later lived in the Minneapolis suburb of New Hope. In 1988 she graduated from Metropolitan State University, where she studied business administration. She has long been active in community work, in politics, and the arts, particularly the advancement of Hispanic and Chicano causes, and an active participant in various Hispanic cultural, political, religious, and legal organizations.

Gomez-Bethke was a founder of Centro Cultural Chicano, a Minneapolis bilingual social service agency, and was a founder and executive director of Instituto de Arte y Cultura, a Minneapolis cultural arts organization for Hispanics. She served on the Hispanic Advisory Committee to the Mayor and to the City Council of Minneapolis under mayors Hofstede and Fraser, and on the Spanish Speaking Affairs Council under governors Perpich and Quie. She served on the Minnesota Department of Human Rights Police/Community Relations Task Force in the early 1980s and, later was commissioner of the department (1983-1984).

Gomez-Bethke served as a director of many of the organizations represented in this collection, including Centro Cultural Chicano, Centro Legal, Inc., Migrants in Action, Inc./Hispanos en Minnesota, Inc., and Legal Rights Center, Incorporated. She was a member of the executive committee of the Urban Coalition of Minneapolis; on the board of advisors of Urban Concerns Workshops Inc.; a member of the advisory council of the Retired Senior Volunteer Program; Hispanic affairs consultant for Los Ninos News ; food services director for Homeward Bound, Inc. (a group home for retarded and handicapped children); and a member of the Hispanic Ministry Advisory Board of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis. She was coordinator of the Hispanic Women's Caucus of Minnesota Women of Color; served on the state steering committee of the Minnesota Women's Political Caucus; state chair of the Hispanic American Democrats; a member of the New Hope (Minn.) Human Rights Commission (1996-); and was active in Democratic politics at the national, state, and local levels.